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Fast convicted of stepmother's murder

More than two years after the brutal slaying of Tara resident Susan Fast, her murderer has been sent to prison for life.

On Monday, a jury convicted her stepson, Thomas Fast, of first-degree murder. Judge Gilbert Smith Jr., sentenced him to life without parole.

Jurors found Thomas Fast guilty of stabbing his stepmother in the jugular, dragging her body to the bathroom and dismembering it. Manatee County Sheriff’s Office deputies found her body stuffed in garbage bags in a storm drain behind a Publix shopping center in Lakewood Ranch.